Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Becoming one with the bike--and not in a good way.

I owe the world of cycling an apology.

Since starting this blog in 1986, I've mocked cyclists for being total "weenies" when it comes to equipment. Sure, this conceit became stale almost immediately, but that's not why I'm apologizing. I'm apologizing because I've recently realized that cyclists hardly register on the vast spectrum of weenie-dom. What brought me to this realization? This:

(Steampunk iPod.)

Well not that exactly, but records and the playing of records upon "turning tables." I am not an audiophile by any means, but I do have a bunch of records, mostly because when I came of music-buying age records were still what people used. Therefore, I've maintained ownership of a "turning table" over the years so that I can still hear these records, and as much as I appreciate digital entertainment I still think it's fun to listen to music you have to flip over. Sure, sometimes I flip my phone over out of nostalgia, but it's not the same.

Recently though, I discovered that turning tables and human children are natural enemies, owing to the turning table's delicate parts and the human child's natural instinct to destroy those delicate parts. Therefore, I was forced to relocate the turning table to higher ground, and to replace the delicate parts--in particular, the pointy one that the turning table drags along the record to make sound.

As I said, I'm not even remotely an audiophile, and my goal was simply to make the turntable work acceptably again for a minimal amount of money. Nevertheless, this being the Internet age and my being (at least anatomically) a male, I nevertheless found myself reading up on the latest equipment and stuff, and holy crap these people are insane. You'd need an electron microscope to see the parts they're arguing about, and you'd need hyper-acute cat senses to even begin to discern the difference, if there even is any. Reading about this stuff makes those chain lube tests seem eminently reasonable.

Fortunately though, years of cycling have trained me to recognize the Red Flags of Weeniedom, and of course the biggest one is the appearance of crabon fribé. I shouldn't have to tell you this, but if you're researching a piece of equipment and find that any part of it is available in crabon, then for the sake of yourself and your family stop what you're doing immediately. If someone offers you crack at a party then it's probably time to leave, and if someone offers you crabon anything then do the smart thing and smoke some crack instead. That's why as soon as I saw that they were making turntable parts out of crabon I filled the tub with ice, got in it, and started slapping myself:

I don't know, maybe this crabon record stuff has been around forever, or maybe it's only happening now because records are cool again like fixiescyclocross, but either way it was news to me. I didn't even know that thing was called a "tonearm." I always just called it the "needle wang."

Anyway, following the "no crabon" rule is guaranteed to save your ass from all forms of weeniedom, including but not limited to wine:

While being whipped for being naughty, you really need the lateral stiffness and vertical compliance of crabon.

Hey, do whatever you want, but don't say I didn't warn you. They don't call crabon "Douchebag's Gold" for nothing.

Speaking of crabon, an important hurdle in the eventual selling of disc brakes to roadies may have been cleared, because you can now buy crabon rotors:

I've long felt constrained by the excessive weight of my metal brake rotors, but I'm relatively certain those are just cleverly repurposed pie plates.

In other news, I don't know about you, but when I receive an email from a reader with the subject line "Seat Post in Rectum" I open it immediately:

As cyclists, it's all too easy to get wrapped up in our own weenie-ism (you know, the kind of weeniesm that compels us to point out it was the saddle rail and not the seat post that got lodged in his rectum), so let's all join together and spare a thought for someone way, way, way less fortunate:

By the way, this is obviously a huge marketing coup for Giant:

You really can't buy that kind of publicity--at least not legally.

What you can buy, however, is Bret, whose image is now used on the packaging of rougly 68% of all consumer goods sold in North America. In fact, he's endorsing so many products that a reader informs me he now competes against himself:

As the reader succinctly puts it:

2 Brets on 2 different packages for similar products on the same shelf at the same store

this is like one of those time travel paradoxes where the time traveling self runs into the current self...

If crabon is the Red Flag of Weeniedom, then Bret is the Good Housekeeping Seal of Extraordinary Cheapness.

Lastly, learning how to ride a bicycle in New York City is "liberating"--and not in the "liberate me from my bicycle with the Jaws of Life" sense:

Crosspalms: hope you took the bus today.In defense of indoor training from yesterday's discussion,it's not so much the weather, it's the sand,salt, cinders and flint rock the plows throw all over the roads.I've had so many flats in the winter that I'll suffer a few mind-numbing inside rides until the rain washes them off.Over and out, DB

I ain't got no turning table but I do have a CD copy burnt from an original Hot Rats LP by FZ. Pops and hiss included. All the fun but I don't have to get up and flip it. Which is nice when I'm stuck to the couch.

or, if you want something fussy Snobber, find a nice thorens 160 or similar suspended turntable. i loved mine and they can be a real pain in the ass. kind of like having internal cable routing or a soft tail mountain bike.

by the way, if you just do the cartridge something like a grado red is good. or if you want to impress your friends, get a denon dl103. its moving coil so you'll then need to get a receiver that can handle moving coil. once you do that you'll start obsessing over all kinds of other crap and be well on your way to "upgrade" misery.

Snorted coffee through nose - ..Gave him $100... should have thought of that with my own, now way past grown children. Now I know what to do with GK's. The Snob don't need no stinkin' Kindling. Oops, is my age showing?

interestingly brett is riding different bikes on the different products. i can tell because one has the drivetrain on the right (correct) side and the other one has it on the left side. This left hand drive must be quite a rare find.

Mr. Bike Snob, "The Cycling Bible" by Robin Barton lists, as "Cycling Cities" Copenhagen, Paris, London, Melbourne, and representing the U.S. of A., Portland and New York. What! No Amsterdam! No Edmonton or Calgary! No Berkely or Minneapolis! Come on.

Mr. Bike Snob, I was perusing the bike book section of our local library and discovered that it has something for everyone. For "Freds" there is "Serious Cycling" for hipsters "Global Fixed Gear Cycling" and for the rest of us, your books.

I built myself a steampunk turntable whose drive mechanism is made solely from fixie parts. Unfortunately I've searched Sheldon Brown's site in a vain attempt to find the magical combination of cogs to give me the gear inches needed to play my LPs at a speed of something other than 52 and 7/16ths rpm.

Anon - i agree about the Rega. but they tend to be a bit more pricey out of the box and i figured that since Snobberstein is a member of a certain dessert tribe that he might not want to spring the extra $60-$70 since that buys a LOT of bagels.

Unfortunately the golden age of dirt-cheap high-end yard-sale stereo gear is long over. About 20 years ago I bought beautiful turntables, receivers and speakers at about 5 cents on the dollar, making myself an audioweenie on the cheap; now I pay through the nose to repair them. They live in a child-proof closet.

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!